Conkers bonkers

Time was when youngsters would be picking these little brown nuts up by the bagful and threading a string through them and then bashing them to bits against their opponent's to see which was the hardest. (If none were lying on the ground it was considered perfectly rational to lob a big long branch up into the tree to knock a few down. Just watch out for the returning branch! I speak from experience.) Yup, an absolutely pointless pastime but one involving complex rules, a modicum of skill in aiming the damn thing and no end of skulduggery getting them as hard a nails using various treatments, soaking in vinegar was supposed to toughen 'em up. Of course you could just cheat and keep one from the year before, but that was a knavish trick. 

The game, if you can call it that, seems to be losing popularity. You simply don't see children picking up conkers any more. I've even heard of some schools banning the game on health and safety grounds! For heaven's sake a knock on the knuckles from a errant conker is all part of life's tough journey.

Now these seeds of the Horse chestnut just lie on the pavement unloved and unwanted. I'm told you can use them to scare spiders away but one correspondent in the Times reported that his pile of conkers designed for this purpose was covered in cobwebs. Still if the spiders insist on coming in you could, I suppose, whack them on the head with a conker.

As I say the game is mainly for children, no-one I knew ever played it when they reached the grand old age of twelve. It seems however that there is a World Conker Championship (surely not) held in Aston in Northamptonshire every October. Now that is bonkers!

Yellow spoilsports

In these days of safety and dullness it's hard to remember the days just a dozen or so years ago before spoilers were placed on all the fun bits of town like this little slope from the end of Victoria Avenue down to Chanterlands Avenue. So you might cycle or skateboard too fast down there and end up in the road and be run over, meh! Hardly ever happened and you wouldn't do it twice would you?.

By Shady and his m8

Do you remember those fancy new buildings with high windows that I posted a while back, well this forms part of the view. Snazzy innit?

The old gas works

This is an early example of developing a brown field site, re-using a former industrial area. In this case the Broadley Street gas works, close by Queen's dock, were removed, the Guildhall and law courts built over them and the street renamed Alfred Gelder Street. The old Kingston Gaslight Company, using an inefficient and wasteful process, supplied a poisonous product that gave very poor illumination so not much has really changed over the years.

Red Spot

Came across three trees in East Park suffering from red spot disease, the symptoms are a sudden and catastrophic loss of  all branches and trunk and the appearance of an ominous red spot, it's almost always fatal.

Ghosts on West Street

If you ever take a picture of a shop window reflection don't be surprised if the shopkeeper comes out and asks you just what the heck you think you are doing. He seemed genuinely upset that I was taking pictures of his stock and couldn't understand that I wasn't interested in his dummies with school uniforms. This is West Street which connects onto King Edward Street through this archway. At one time (25+ years ago!) traffic could run through this way but for some reason this was stopped as it led to too much human happiness. Anyway I liked the ghostly figures and it was worth taking even if the shopkeeper thinks I'm crazy. He may very well be right.

Weekend Reflections are here. 

Afterthought: Just figured out the storekeeper's anxiety at my taking pictures. The shop is under investigation by trading standards officers under the consumer protection act. Turns out the shop's owner was prosecuted last year for breaching schools' copyright by selling uniforms bearing their crests without permission. Maybe he thought I was gathering evidence and well,  I'd better stop speculating here, don't want to be held to be in contempt, again

A bit frayed at the edges

"... this most cultural-inimical sickness and unreasonableness that there is, nationalism, this névrose nationale with which Europe is sick, this perpetuation of European petty-statesmanship, of petty politics: they have robbed Europe itself of its meaning, of its reason — they have led it into a blind alley...." F W Nietzsche Ecce Homo

Well it was billed as the most important vote ever, something to decide the future of the UK, a once in a life time opportunity. Strange then that most of us didn't have a vote but we'll let that pass. It was deemed to be such a close run thing, the opinion polls had it too close to call, but the polls are designed that way else why have polls at all?  After what seems like an eternity of gassing on Scotland's nay sayers have emphatically said nae and that hopefully will be the end of that. Watch as the promises for extra devolution cynically made a few days before the vote are quietly sunk in the mire of Westminster as English MPs block any home rule measures (so-called Devo-Max). Interesting times ... oh and smile as the PM tries not to gloat too much at the Nationalists' failure.